Cynthia & Gertie RIDE AGAIN!
Circa Two, Circa Theatre, 1 Taranaki St, Waterfront, Wellington
16/10/2024 - 02/11/2024
Production Details
Written and performed by Helen Moulder
Dramaturg and Director - Jeff Kingsford-Brown
Willow Productions
The magnificent Cynthia Fortitude, is definitely in the twilight of her long career as operatic diva. Tonight, she has arrived to give a musical lecture for the inaugural meeting of the Island Bay Opera Guild (IBOG). Her longsuffering accompanist Miss Gertrude Rallentando, is nowhere to be found, so Cynthia must battle on without her. “I wanted to honour the character of Gertie,” Helen says. “My good friend, Rose Beauchamp, who played Gertie for thirty years with me in Hens’ Teeth, The Legend Returns and Cynthia & Gertie Go Baroque, sadly died in 2022, and I wanted the delicious character of Gertie to live on somehow. Gertie does not appear in this show of course, but is very present in all sorts of ways!”
CIRCA TWO, 1, Taranaki Street, WELLINGTON Waterfornt
16 October – 2 November 2024
TUES to SAT 7.30pm
SUN4.30
{PREVIEW: 15 October 7.30pm)
PRICES: $30-$55
BOOK: 04 801 7992 or here
circa.co.nz
Helen has been performing as Miss Cynthia Fortitude, for nearly forty years now. “I love playing the blissfully deluded Cynthia!” Helen says. “She is really the synthesis of my parents, as my mother was a lovely singer and my father was a very funny man, always playing tricks on us. I relish the fact that Cynthia gently corrals the audience into being active participants in the madness and that she is also quite innocently subversive!”
Helen’s long and illustrious acting career spans almost five decades and includes her roles at Circa in Wit and Meeting Karpovsky (with Sir Jon Trimmer), both of which won her the Chapman Tripp Best Actor of the Year Award. This year, Helen has had the comic role of Jean in the NZ tour of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and now is looking forward to this challenging solo show. Cynthia & Gertie Ride Again! is in memory of Rose Beauchamp (1946 – 2022) who played the role of Gertie for over thirty years.
Lighting Design - Deb McGuire, Gabriella Eaton
Stage Manager, Operator and as Deborah - Gabriella Eaton
Theatre , Music ,
75mins
Cynthia’s belief and delight in what she does is likeable and infectious
Review by Tim Stevenson 17th Oct 2024
She’s back, as bossy, eccentric and risible as ever. The passing of time has not dimmed her belief that she is the most prima of all prima donnas. She is Mongolia’s pick as the greatest living soprano of all time. She is the Cynthia of the title: Cynthia Fortitude, dotty standard-bearer for opera in far-flung corners of the world and New Zealand, and an old habitue of the Wellington stage.
Tonight, Cynthia attends a meeting of the Island Bay Operatic Guild to introduce the locals to the delights of her favourite musical genre. She is diverted onto the topic of an opera she and her musical partner Gertie Rallentando are creating. From there, we’re transported to the bizarre world of Il Meraviglioso Pappataci di Aotearoa – this being the opera’s title, which I won’t translate here because it’s a joke in waiting.
A generous host, Cynthia freely shares the events, characters and emotional nuances of her life. She is given to bursting into song, which may be anywhere between canonical opera and the broadest of pastiche. She is also a musical director out of the strict schoolmistress school, who doesn’t just ask for audience participation, she demands it.
What really brings this concoction of delicate whimsy together and breathes life into it is the charm, energy and vivacity Helen Moulder brings to her creation. Cynthia’s belief and delight in what she does is so likeable and infectious that, for example, even crusty old reviewers happily sing along when it’s time for audience participation. I can say this because it happened to me, for only the second time in my life. The other time was, perhaps not coincidently, at another Cynthia Fortitude event.
The publicity tells us that Cynthia has ornamented the stages of Wellington for forty years. Based on the enthusiastic audience reaction, the character still has a ton of appeal. It helps that Moulder keeps her in the here and now, struggling with cellphones and iPads and absolutely smashing e-scooters, and cheerfully sharing how she and Gertie self-identify.
It’s a dead certainty that a lot of the appeal also lies in Moulder’s highly-polished skills as a singer, comedian and storyteller.
Moulder is well supported by Gabriella Eaton, who is stage manager and operator and joins in the dialogue at key moments.
A moment of respectful silence for Rose Beauchamp, the Gertie of the title, no longer with us. There’s what seems to be a lovely little tribute to her at the very end of the show.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
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